As the curling chiropractor, Pat Simmons's Saskatchewan squad is the Great Green Hope at the Roar of the Rings

REGINA -- Most days you can find Pat Simmons at the Crescent Park Chiropractic Centre in Moose Jaw or at his satellite vertebrae adjustment centre an hour and 15 minutes due south in Gravelbourg.

And that's where most people in Saskatchewan figured you could find him from Dec. 6-13 during the Tim Horton's Roar of the Rings Olympic curling trials.

Simmons was once the Great Green Hope to bring a Brier tankard back to the province of Saskatchewan which hasn't won since 1980.

But lately the province has given up hope. And as for Olympic gold: that would definitely be a nope.

But now ... hey, the Roughriders finished first for the first time since 1976. Why not?

BRIER EXPERIENCE

Simmons was 6-5 in the 2005 Brier in Edmonton, 5-6 at the Brier here in 2006, 7-4 in 2007 in Hamilton and 9-4 and in third place in 2008 in Winnipeg. But he crashed and burned last year and few expected the Saskatchewan team would get a a ticket to Edmonton and a chance to get to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

"I don't mind our spot. We won't get quite the spotlight as some of the other teams. But we're having a solid year, a consistent year," he said.

"We've had one bad year. The year before we won a pile of cash and should have been in the Brier final. Last year was a hiccup year. I fiddled with my delivery. Some of it backfired a little bit. Things sort of snowballed backwards. Then confidence became an issue. Then it got to a point we needed a break."

Simmons knows he doesn't have the resume to bring to Edmonton of a Randy Ferbey, Kevin Martin, Glenn Howard or Jeff Stoughton.

"We're still looking to break out. We haven't won anything yet. But we're going in just the way we wanted.

"Having qualified, I like the fact we had to go through the pre-trials Road to the Roar route. If you could have guaranteed us that we'd qualify, that's sure the route we would have chosen to take," he said of getting Roar ready.

"We're thrilled. We just can't wait for Edmonton. It's nice to be able to look back and say you played well enough to earn it. In Edmonton we're obviously going to have to play the same way we did in Prince George to qualify.

"We don't have a whole lot to lose."

So Dec. 6 to13 would not be a good time to throw out your back in Moose Jaw or Gravelbourg. In fact, between now and then Simmons and his team will be moving around the province.

Yesterday afternoon, the curling chiropractor and his teammates from Yorkton and Saskatoon had picked the Tartan cub in Regina to get together to practice.

Long gone are the days of the Campbells from Avonlea or the Richardsons from here, two of the greatest teams in curling history. Rounding up one competitive team from around Saskatchewan is tough enough. And rounding them up for practice involves the kind of mileage familiar to football fans coming here to watch their Roughriders from around the province.

Officially the team is listed out of Davidson, about halfway between here and Saskatoon. But it's been a while since they actually showed up there.

"With the team we started with, which included Ben Hebert of Regina before he moved to Alberta and hooked up with Kevin Martin, it was fitting to play out of there.

FAR AND WIDE

"But now there's third Gerry Adam of Yorkton, second Jeff Sharp and Steve Leacock both of Saskatoon so we kind of move around the province a lot. We don't really have a home club. We just never changed it being listed as Davidson because they've been so good for us.

"We hardly ever get a chance to practice together as a foresome. A lot of it is based on individual trust. But now we're finding our ways to get together. A week before the pre-trials Road to the Roar event we went to Yorkton. We've been to Saskatoon. And now Regina."

Next stop Edmonton. That's where he came in.

It was the most ballistic Brier of all time, the one which drew the all time record 281,985 fans.

"I think it's good. We had an eye-opening experience there. It was the best Brier ever. No doubt about that. It's going to be kind of neat returning with the magnitude of this event."